Laurien Berenson tops today’s Buffet with A Pedigree To Die For, a charming, light summer mystery that you’ll enjoy, particularly if you’re a dog person. It’s the first installment in her “Melanie Travis” mystery series that debuted in hardcover in 1995. This cozy tale focuses on the world of show dogs but highlights a child as well — teacher Melanie Travis, with her delightfully rambunctious four-year-old in tow, helps her poodle-breeding aunt track down the prize stud animal that disappeared the night her husband died.
Laurien is an Agatha and Macavity Nominee, winner of the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and four-time winner of the Maxwell Award, presented by the Dog Writers Association of America. She and her husband live on a farm in Kentucky surrounded by dogs and horses.
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A Pedigree To Die For (A Melanie Travis Mystery)
Melanie’ Travis’s life is going to the dogs. With school out for the summer, a stint as a camp counselor falling through, and her sometime boyfriend dumping her for a Las Vegas chorus girl, the thirty-something Connecticut teacher and single mother figures that things can’t get any worse.She figures wrong…
Everyone knew that Melanie’s Uncle Max had a weak heart. When Aunt Peg finds him dead on the cold floor of their championship kennel, surrounded by eleven whining, prize-winning Standard poodles, she isn’t shocked…and doesn’t panic. But Melanie is surprised when, three days after the funeral, Peg shows up seeking her help. One of her prize pooches is missing — and it’s beginning to look like Max’s sudden demise is more a matter of… murder.
With her four-year-old son Davey happily ensconced in day camp, Melanie manages to maneuver herself into Connecticut’s elite canine circles. Posing as a poodle breeder in search of the perfect stud, she mingles with sophisticated exhibitors and professional handlers…and soon starts feeling a little out of her clas. Until she meets Sam Driver. Although the irresistibly attractive breeder is soon wooing her with seductive candle lit dinners, Melanie resolves to be wary.
Then the killer strikes again, and Melanie realizes that she has been barking up the wrong tree. As events — mysterious and romantic — culminate in the celebrated Westminster Dog Show, she suddenly finds herself on a long leash of intrigue and greed…hot on the scent of a chilling secret to die for.
INVISIBLE PRISON
Magic is the last gift Alex Noziak wants but she must embrace it to gain her freedom.
Alex Noziak, part-witch, part-shaman is dumped into the middle of four hostile non-human females and expected to train as a team to protect humans from preternatural threats. Prison never looked so good in comparison.
Breakaway (Portland Storm Book 1)
She’s reaching for a breakaway pass.
Dana Campbell has spent the past seven years in self-imposed isolation for a crime she didn’t commit. The danger is well in the past, but her panic attacks make it impossible to have a normal, healthy relationship with a man. Even her counselor has given up on her. She has to find someone she trusts to help her fight through the panic, or her seven-year ordeal will become a lifetime sentence. There’s only one man she feels safe enough to ask.
He got caught with his head down.
As the captain of the NHL’s once elite but now fading Portland Storm, Eric Zellinger knows a thing or two about keeping his focus on the job. Questions are flying about his ability to lead the team back to the playoffs. If they don’t make it, he might be shipped out of town. It’s the worst time possible for his best friend’s kid sister to divide his focus. How can he give her what she needs without jeopardizing both the Storm’s playoff hopes and his future with the team?
It’s her only chance, but it’s his last shot.
Galya Popoff and the Dead Souls
It’s five a.m. in the little California coastal town of Santa Maria del Lobo, and Professor Galya Popoff is waiting for her poodle Kroshka to finish his rest-stop by the college Campanile. In the darkness, two hundred feet over their heads, Chancellor Siegfried (“Nazi”) Nottbeck is honing his free climbing skills. Suddenly, his body plunges out of the night sky and hits the bricks a mere two feet from Galya. The police write it off as a bizarre accident.
But Galya insists it was murder and decides to take charge of the investigation herself. She drafts her reluctant son, Lance Steele (a.k.a. Pavel Popoff) a down-on-his-luck Soap star who’s fled Hollywood and bill collectors to temporarily hide out at his mother’s place and work on his tan. The last thing he wants is to play Watson to her Sherlock, but how do you say no to a feisty, bossy Russian mother who once locked horns with the Soviet KGB – and won. This unlikely trio (two Popoffs and a poodle) swings into dizzying detective action as Galya tracks a shrewd and savvy murderer who will kill anyone to keep the secret of the Dead Souls safe.
The Power Of Habit: How to Create Good Habits & Break Bad Habits
The habits we have shape our reality on a daily basis. Whether they are good or bad depends on YOU and what you chose to do with your habits. This book is not a series of case studies and medical study, instead has been designed to help you make real progress and changes with your daily habits. I have made some huge changes in my own life and now I am sharing the knowledge I have gained through the experience. My desire is you enjoy the book and are able to get some real positive changes into your habits.
Abby (Abby Series Book 1)
Who is Abby?
Is she just another little girl you see on the street or playing in her yard? Could she be your friend’s little sister? Maybe she’s the girl at the supermarket hanging off her mother’s arm?
No. Abby is different. She sees things no one else sees. The source of constant bullying over her imaginary friend, the unimaginable happens after one horrible prank.
Kings & Queens
Seventeen-year-old Majesty Alistair wants police to look further into her father’s fatal car wreck, hopes the baseball team she manages can reclaim the state crown, aches for Derek…or, no…maybe Alec…maybe. And she mostly wishes to retract the hateful words she said to her dad right before slamming the door in his face, only to never see him again.
All her desires get sidelined, though, when she overhears two fellow students planning a church massacre. She doubts cops will follow up on her tip since they’re sick of her coming around with notions of possible crimes-in-the-works. And it’s not like she cries wolf. Not really. They’d be freaked too, but they’re not the ones suffering from bloody dreams that hint at disaster like some crazy, street guy forecasting the Apocalypse.
So, she does what any habitual winner with zero cred would do…try to I.D. the nutjobs before they act. But, when their agenda turns out to be far bigger than she ever assumed, and even friends start looking suspect, the truth and her actions threaten to haunt her forever, especially since she’s left with blood on her hands, the blood of someone she loves.
Photographing Children – Tips, Tricks And Ideas! (On Target Photo Training Book 20)
Once you have digested this easy to read and easy to understand “On Target Photo Training”, you will be well on the way to shooting amazing photos… Ones that win photo contests! Or bring tears to the eyes of parents… isn’t that what you got into photography to do?
Within about an hour – you will not only understand all the photo theory – but you will know how to apply it as well!
This volume of the “On Target Photo Training” series, is not just about photographing children but, various types of light and light manipulation. These are key elements that affect most every shot and that most of us will encounter on an almost daily basis.
Sleep with the Lights On (A Brown and De Luca Novel Book 1)
Through the eyes of a killer…
Rachel de Luca has found incredible success writing self-help books. But her own blindness and the fact that her troubled brother has gone missing have convinced her that positive thinking is nothing but bull.
Her cynicism wavers when a cornea transplant restores her sight. The new eyes seem to give her new life, until they prove too good to be true and she starts seeing terrifying visions of brutal murders—crimes she soon learns are all too real.
Detective Mason Brown’s own brother recently died, leaving behind a horrific secret. In atonement, Mason donated his brother’s organs, though he’s kept the fact quiet. Now he wants to help Rachel find her brother, but when he discovers the shocking connection between her visions and his own brother, he suddenly has to do everything in his power to save her from a predator who is somehow still hunting from beyond the grave.
Looking for Me: A Novel
Beth Hoffman’s bestselling debut, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, won admirers and acclaim with its heartwarming story and cast of unforgettably quirky characters. Now her flair for evocative settings and richly drawn Southern personalities shines again in her compelling second novel, Looking for Me.
Teddi Overman found her life’s passion in turning other people’s castoffs into beautifully restored antiques. Leaving her hardscrabble Kentucky childhood behind, Teddi opens her own store in Charleston. She builds a life as unexpected and quirky as her many customers, but nothing alleviates the haunting uncertainty she’s felt since her brother Josh mysteriously disappeared. When signs emerge that Josh might still be alive, Teddi returns to Kentucky, embarking on a journey that could help her come to terms with her shattered family—and find herself.
Damocles
When Earth is rocked by evidence that extraterrestrials may have seeded human DNA throughout the universe, a one-way expedition into deep space is mounted to uncover the truth. What linguist Meg Dupris and her crewmates aboard the Earth ship Damocles discover on Didet—a planet bathed in the near-eternal daylight of seven suns—is a humanoid race with a different language, a different look, and a surprisingly similar society.
But here, it’s the “Earthers” who are the extraterrestrial invaders, and it’s up to Meg—a woman haunted by tragedy and obsessed with the power of communication—to find the key to establishing trust between the natives and the newcomers. In Loul Pell, a young Dideto male thrust into the forefront of the historic event, Meg finds an unexpected kindred spirit, and undertakes an extraordinary journey of discovery, friendship, and life-altering knowledge.
Told from both sides of a monumental encounter, Damocles is a compelling novel about man’s first contact with an extraterrestrial race.
The Disenchanted Widow
It’s 1981 and Belfast is burning. So, too, is freshly widowed Bessie Halstone: she burns with a desire to break with her troubled past. With her feckless husband gone, she leaves home hurriedly with her naughty nine-year-old son, Herkie, and not much else. The Dentist, an IRA enforcer, is on her tail. He’s convinced that Bessie, with her “yella hair all puffed up like Merlin Monroe’s,” has absconded with the takings from a bank heist.
But car trouble strands mother and son in Tailorstown, a sleepy Ulster village. Bessie finds temporary work as housekeeper for the handsome and mysterious parish priest.
In the meantime, Lorcan Strong, an artist and a native of the village, is summoned home. He’s been shanghaied into forging paintings for the IRA. It’s work he cannot refuse; his mother and their business are under threat.
Saltwater Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story
When small-town girl Emma LaRue won a vacation to an exclusive tropical island, a last minute cancellation meant she would be going by herself. Shy and studious, she never had time to fall in love, and often wondered if she was just meant to be alone. However, that all changed when a handsome stranger literally walked into her life while on the beach and sparks began to fly.
New York’s most eligible billionaire bachelor Jack Saunders thought this vacation would be the perfect escape, one last hurrah, before taking full control of his father’s company. When an innocent Emma didn’t recognize him, he figured that he might get a chance to have a vacation from being rich. He didn’t tell her about the cars, the yacht, or the penthouse. All he did was let her fall in love with him.
Soon, Jack found that he was the one falling in love with Emma. When they enjoy a fantasy marriage ceremony on the beach, they thought it was a bit of harmless fun before returning to their normal lives. A bittersweet goodbye was supposed to be the end of their perfect vacation romance, but when photos of the ceremony were leaked to the press, everything changed.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2